Positive affect as a moderator of liking effects on trust and attraction

Attitude similarity effects on attraction appear to be mediated sequentially by positive affect, inferred attraction, and trust. That is, the first two supposedly distal mediators influence each other in building trust, a mediator proximal to attraction. However, the correlational nature of data reported heretofore precludes definitive conclusions about sequential dependency between the two distal mediators. In the research reported, therefore, the authors manipulated positive affect in the participants (Time 1) and liking of the partner for them (Time 2), and measured trust before attraction. As predicted, liking effects on trust and attraction were stronger when positive affect in the participants was high than when it was low. Importantly, the interaction effect in trust fully mediated the interaction effect in attraction.     

Transformative Choice,Practical Reasons and Trust

Abstract

In this article I reflect on the question of whether we can have reason to make transformative choices. In attempting to answer it, I do three things. First, I bring forward an internalist account of practical reasons which entails the idea that agents should deliberate to the best of their ability. Second, I discuss L.A. Paul’s views on transformative choice, arguing that, although they present a real problem, the problem is not as profound as she believes it is. Third, I argue that, given the situation in which we face transformative choices (a situation of principled uncertainty though not cluelessness), trust is an appropriate response to transformative choices, and that when one’s trust that one’s current desires will be fulfilled in making a transformative choice is reasonable, one has a reason to make it. Thus, trust turns out to be a crucial response to a profound problem each of us will face during our lives.     

Culture Marker Versus Authority Marker: How Do Language Attitudes Affect Political Trust?

Is public trust in government representatives (i.e., bureaucrats, police, public servants) affected by the language they use? The conventional theory holds that, in a multilingual society, people favor government representatives who speak the listeners' dialects because it indicates a shared cultural identity, that is, the “culture-marker” effect. This article offers an alternative mechanism in which people's attitudes can be affected by the government designating the official language as a marker of political authority. Listeners will then project their respect for the political authority to the government representatives who speak this marker language. This mechanism is named an “authority marker” effect. Using a set of adjusted matched-guise experiments in China, this study examines the culture-marker and authority-marker effects. The results support the authority-marker effect by showing that listeners have significantly more trust in the bureaucrats who speak the official language than in those who speak the dialects of the listeners. The study also finds that this is a unique effect for speakers when they represent the government. Without that political identity, listeners will still respond more positively to speakers of their own dialects.     

Whose promises are worth more? How social status affects trust in promises

Promises are among the most widely used tools for increasing trust in social hierarchies; yet the effect of social status on trust in promises is unknown. Here we used a modified version of the Trust Game, in which participants, acting as Investors, were paired with Trustees of varying social status who were given the opportunity to promise (or not) to return at least half of the multiplied amount (i.e., 4 × the amount invested). No return feedback was provided. Participants invested more in partners who promised than those who did not or whose promise information was concealed. Importantly, in both lab-manipulated (Exps. 1–3: math-induced) and pre-existing (Exp. 4: university-based) hierarchies, participants invested more in promises given by high status than low status partners. Post-experiment measures suggest that this may be due to greater expectations of honesty for high status than low status others. Potential explanations and implications are discussed.     

Trust in the medical profession and patient attachment style

Attachment style is a person’s approach to interpersonal relationships, which develops from early experiences with primary caregivers and can remain stable into adulthood. Depending on a person’s attachment style, the amount of trust one has in others can vary when forming relationships, and trust is important in formation of the patient–physician relationship. The purpose of this study was to see if there is an association between attachment style and trust in physicians in general. Participants were recruited from an emergency department (ED) and an online university participant pool, and completed short questionnaires assessing attachment style and trust in the medical profession. Results revealed that individuals with a fearful attachment style reported significantly lower levels of trust in the medical profession than those with a secure attachment style. ED participants also reported higher levels of trust in the medical profession in comparison to student participants. This study provides a better understanding of trust in the medical profession, and insight into future care for patients who have low trust.     

Psychological ownership in relation to workplace trust and turnover intent

The study investigated the relationship between workplace trust, psychological ownership and turnover intent within a South African professional services organisation. A cross-sectional quantitative survey design was used to collect data from a purposive sample (n = 302) of skilled, highly skilled and professional employees in a professional services industry. The participants completed the Psychological Ownership Questionnaire, Workplace Trust Survey, and Turnover Intentions Scale. The results from structural equation modelling (SEM) suggest psychological ownership to be significantly related to workplace trust (positively) and turnover intent (negatively). In addition, the findings indicate psychological ownership to fully mediate the relationship between workplace trust and turnover intent. By implication, work environments that fostered workplace trust would increase the level of psychological ownership that employees’ experienced, which, in turn, would reduce employees’ intent to leave their workplace.     

经济决策中人际信任博弈的理论模型与脑机制

信任是指个体在缺乏足够信息来判断他人动机、意图和行为的情况下,将社会资源交给对方处置并承担相应风险的意愿。作为一种基本的社会信号机制,信任对于发展和维持良好社会关系具有重要作用。借助信任博弈范式,研究者揭示了人际信任的认知神经机制并建构了多种理论,包括背叛厌恶理论、社会规范理论、道德规范理论和默认行为模型。脑成像研究发现信任行为主要涉及内侧前额叶、尾状核、杏仁核和脑岛等脑区,其中内侧前额叶主要参与心理推理、情绪认知与调控等过程,尾状核参与同伴值得信赖性的习得与编码,杏仁核和脑岛则主要参与风险、不确定性和背叛恐惧加工。今后研究应侧重不同理论之间的补充与整合,强化不同脑区之间的功能连接与整体性,并注重信任行为中的个体差异。     

Predicting Driver's Intention Based on Own Vulnerability: A Social Interaction Process between Road Users at an Intersection in Japan

When road users predict the future movement of an approaching vehicle at an intersection, they need to consider not only the physical environment but also the predicted behavioral intention of the approaching driver. In the present experiments, we asked participants to imagine how a vehicle would approach in a natural traffic environment. In Experiment 1, participants estimated the time‐to‐contact with an approaching vehicle as longer when they were physically vulnerable. In Experiment 2, we confirmed that differences in participants’ eye height did not explain the findings of Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, we asked participants to indicate the last possible moment at which they could cross an intersection in front of an approaching vehicle. Participants left a shorter safety margin when they were more physically vulnerable than the approaching vehicle. The results indicate that road users’ perceived vulnerability is a cue for them to trust the approaching driver's intention to decelerate. This viewpoint is important for interventions to prevent unrealistic trust that an approaching vehicle will avoid an accident and subsequent trust‐based behaviors.     

Trust and Involvement as Higher-Order Factors of General Attitudes Towards Politics. Testing a Structural Model Across 26 Democracies

Interindividual differences in how people think and feel about politics have been investigated for decades. However, the great number of attitudinal concepts that has been developed to describe these differences is likely to distract from their conceptual overlap and dimensional structure. In addition, not much is known about the cross-cultural invariance of their interrelation. We propose that attitudes towards politics can be structured by two broad higher-order factors, a factor of general political involvement and a factor of general political trust. In two studies (N₁ = 767; N₂ = 29,018), including representative samples from 26 democracies, we first conduct several confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) to show that the higher-order model is a well-fitting and parsimonious alternative to a baseline model without higher-order factors in most samples. Second, we present evidence from multigroup CFA that the overall patterns of factor loadings are the same across all 26 countries. We interpret this structural equivalence across different democracies as support for the assumption that general political involvement and general political trust reflect basic orientations towards politics that are based on (1) demands of democratic political systems and (2) universal principles in human trait structure.